When I was going through a rough time, a friend suggested I “practice gratitude”. I thought the advice was a bit too cliche and politely changed the subject. I had absolutely NO intention of trying it. As my situation continued, with little personal relief, I was reminded of the suggestion again (from a different source). So I shared this simple suggestion of “practicing gratitude” with a mentor of mine. And to my surprise, I discovered my mentor had been practicing gratitude for years!

Since I had little to lose, I decided to give it a try. I began to appreciate one little thing every day, even about my situation that was really challenging, and it helped. It REALLY helped. It was awkward at first but became easier as I continued. I set reminders to help and even began to do it more than once a day. It didn’t solve my problem but it definitely helped. The law of attention states that “energy flows where attention goes”, so what we focus on gets bigger and bigger. Which is why remembering to be grateful made me feel better.

Practicing gratitude still totally sounds cliche to me. But the thing about cliches is that the reason we repeat them is because they’re true… which is why they then become so cliche… Here’s an amazing video containing incredible images. This link might spark gratitude for you, it sure does for me.